ED CANNOT become an Eve clone. Not with 400 billion star systems, solo play, no possibility of having ALT characters, no free intel on player activity like Eve has, no player locator agents, no 2000 players in the same instance (with the heavy lag that comes with it), no gates, no warp bubbles, no cloacky campers, no RMT empires, no Goons, no Pandemic Legions...etc.... For my part, I dont want EVERYTHING that Eve has. I'm sure most people here that want guilds dont want an Eve clone.
Like I said in another thread, have confidence in the devs implementing this. If this is done well, it could make this game incredibly more interesting then it currently is.